Early Bird: A Memoir of Premature Retirement
Rodney Rothman, 2005
Simon & Schuster
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780743270588
Summary
Everyone says they would like to retire early, but Rodney Rothman actually did it — forty years early. Burnt out, he decides at the age of twenty-eight to get an early start on his golden years. He travels to Boca Raton, Florida, where he moves in with an elderly piano teacher at Century Village, a retirement village that is home to thousands of senior citizens.
Early Bird is an irreverent, hilarious, and ultimately warmhearted account of Rodney's journey deep into the heart of retirement. Rodney struggles for acceptance from the senior citizens he shares a swimming pool with, and battles with cranky octogenarians who want him off their turf. The day-to-day dealings begin to wear on him. Before long he observes, "I don't think Tuesdays with Morrie would have been quite so uplifting if that guy had to spend more than one day a week with Morrie."
Rodney throws himself into the spirit of retirement, fashioning a busy schedule of suntanning, shuffleboard, and gambling cruises. As the months pass, his neighbors seem to forget that he is fifty years younger than they are. He finds himself the potential romantic interest of an aging femme fatale. He joins a senior softball club and is disturbed to learn that he is the worst player on the team. For excitement he rides along with a volunteer police officer on his patrols, hunting for crime. But even the criminals in his community seem to have retired.
Early Bird is a funny, insightful, and moving look at what happens to us when we retire, viewed from a remarkably premature perspective. Any reader who plans on becoming an old person will enjoy joining Rodney on his strange journey, as he reconsiders hisnotions of romance, family, friendship, and ultimately, whether he's ever going back to work. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Rodney Rothman is now living in Los Angeles. He is a former head writer for the Late Show with David Letterman, and was a writer and supervising producer for the television show Undeclared. His writing has appeared in the the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, the Best American Nonrequired Reading, The New Yorker, McSweeney's, and Men's Journal. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Funnyman Rothman has written a funny book. And like all good joke stories, this one contains more than a kernel of social truth. Rothman, a former joke writer for both Saturday Night Live and David Letterman, is 28 and burned-out. So what else to do but retire and head to a Florida retirement community? It turns out there's a pronounced social hierarchy here, too (mean girls at any age). Early Bird will facilitate excellent discussions about our expectations for retirement and longevity, and about the way life is, no matter the age.
A LitLovers LitPick (Oct. '06)
Rothman manages to be both an observer of these strange beings about three times his age and a sad-sack newcomer trying to blend in with them. He is working a bit of a stereotype, but his descriptions of the loneliness, the cliquishness, the slow-motion desperation of the place ring true and bittersweet.
Neil Genzlinger - The New YorkTimes
With its statistics and laugh-out-loud humor, the book feels more like a stand-up comedy routine with a sociological edge than a memoir. Rothman's seniors are gutsy, feisty, frugal and sometimes irritating, as when they awaken at 6 a.m. to begin waxing and washing their cars.
Diane Scharper - Washington Post
Rothman has been a head writer for David Letterman and has contributed articles to The New Yorker, the New York Times, and McSweeney's. He has also been, at the age of 25, a retiree. Burned out after a few hectic years of work, he decided to quit and move into a retirement village in Florida. This readable account of his exploration of the world of retirement four decades ahead of time provides a glimpse of a lifestyle known popularly only through stereotypes. Rothman becomes king of the shuffleboard court. He arranges an uneasy detente with his condo mate's cats. He infiltrates the Pool Group and inveigles an invitation to canasta. Rothman has done his research, and he applies his reading on retirement to his personal situation with humorous and occasionally poignant results. Nevertheless, the book reads like one extended sketch. Some sections work particularly well, as when Rothman discusses Maribel, the woman he met via JDate. His physical reaction to dancing with a seductive older woman, however, is fair game; and discerning Rothman's guidelines for what is fair game is occasionally more engrossing than the memoir itself. Still, this readable book is recommended for purchase by larger public libraries. —Audrey Snowden, John F. Kennedy Sch., Santiago de Queretaro, Mexico
Library Journal
A former comedy writer for David Letterman does some up-close research on a common South Florida species-the senior citizen retiree-with "findings" more suited to stand-up routine than anthropological tome. The result: lighthearted fluff with a flair, and not without its educational value. Out of work and pondering his not-so-immediate future, Rothman, 28, decides to get an early glimpse of retirement and soon finds himself sharing a Century Village condo with a widowed piano teacher, her several cats and one early rising parrot. Undaunted, the author dives into such delicacies as the ubiquitous nine-dollar "Early Bird" dinner special; a gambling cruise with an all-female social club; a late-night patrol with the volunteer senior citizen police, and "hard-core" bingo at a nearby strip-mall. He samples senior citizen softball, shuffleboard and canasta. He penetrates the cliquish Pool Club's daily poolside chats. He serves bagels at the local Jewish bakery, visits a Yoko Ono art exhibit with the very unappreciative Art Appreciation Club and, at one point, even tries Viagra. Rothman comes to no profound conclusions here. The mostly Jewish fugitives from the chilly Northeast he encounters conform in general to our imagined stereotypes. Still, seeing them up close-waxing their cars at 6:30 a.m., pilfering Equal packets from the local coffee shop, exchanging surprisingly racy jokes over breakfast bagels-makes for fun reading. And the author's fieldwork doesn't go entirely unrewarded, yielding such oddities as Amy Ballenger, a 93-year-old stand-up comic; Artie, a 63-year-old ex-heroin addict-turned real-estate-agent; and Vivian, a sultry 75-year-old Romanian with five ex-husbands and enough sex appeal to stir even the author's libido. Rothman also provides just enough serious data on aging (for example, the positive effects of staying active and socializing) to make this breezy, humorous tour both entertaining and rewarding. Witty and conversational prose, peppered alternately with sarcasm and compassion: easy, enjoyable reading.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Rodney has come down to South Florida to check out retirement early. Much of his time is spent at Century Village, where he admits he would never live. "I probably wouldn't want other people on top of me quite so much, though in some ways, it's not that bad." He's figuring out how we would want to retire. Have you thought about how you would want to retire? Has reading Early Bird given you any new insight into it?
2. At the start of his new life in South Florida, Rodney often finds himself trying to fit in amongst the retiree social circles. First with the Pool Group and later with the senior softball team. How does Rodney eventually make it into these groups and what are his general observations about joining retiree social networks?
3. When Rodney moves in with his new roommate Margaret, who he discovers through Roommate Finders, he starts off feeling on edge much of the time due to her jittery and hermit-like manner. Many of the community members also felt her to be strangely anti-social. Why do you think Rodney often began defending Margaret to the Pool Group?
4. While Rodney takes time out to observe Century Village, he explains many generalized habits of its senior members such as: a need to sleep less, up early, and socialize with others in groups. What do you think is the one observation he overlooked that he later faced when dealing with his good friend Shirley? Explain.
5. In creating new friendships Rodney quickly bonds with the women. He says, "I am trying to spend even more time with elderly women. Natural intuition would tell you that young men and old men would make better buddies, but this hasn't been my experience." What does Rodney gain from his relationships with women? Why do you think he finds it difficult to bond with men his age?
6. Rodney often takes a lighthearted approach in dealing with women who at times seem very set in their ways. Margaret, his roommate, is antisocial. Amy a fellow comedian, is 94 and raunchy. And Vivian is a sultry femme fatale. What qualities about Rodney do you think these women find interesting?
7. After spending time trying to understand how exactly to fit in with the Pool Group, Rodney often spends time interacting with many of the women. He goes to them for advice and asks to learn new things, such as the game Canasta, which they are very reluctant to teach. Why were they so reluctant to introduce him to their recreational activities?
8. Throughout the book, Rodney continually makes reference to the book Successful Aging, which was written based on the findings of a MacArthur study that differentiated "successful agers" from "bad agers." What were some of the qualities that Rodney discovered about good agers? How would you define Rodney's aging process? Do you think that you're a "good ager" or a "bad ager?" Do you know any bad agers?
9. After spending time trying to understand how exactly to fit in with the Pool Group, Rodney often spends time interacting with many of the women. He goes to them for advice and asks to learn new things, such as the game Canasta, which they are very reluctant to teach. Why were they so reluctant to introduce him to their recreational activities?
10. Most of the male senior citizens that Rodney meets in Florida are World War II veterans. "It's humbling to talk to them about those years. I hear a lot of heroic stories, the kind that have already filled numerous books written by television news anchors." How does Rodney make light of these veterans' stories? Do you get the impression that he lacks respect for their experiences, or that he is so humbled he has to poke a little bit of fun?
11. Rodney is not surprised to find that a large number of retired males want to become police officers. He concludes that the transition from breadwinner to doing nothing is difficult. He goes on to quote Successful Aging, which says, "leaving their job deprives men of a major source of stimulation. They need to find it in other ways." What other coping methods are used by many of the retired men in this book? Is it harder or easier for men to retire than women?
12. Throughout the novel, Rodney's empathetic and sometimes not-so-empathetic ways help him to continuously develop relationships with a number of elderly people. He also meets Christina, a 24-year-old woman with whom he ends up spending many of his last days in Florida. How do these new relationships shape Rodney's ideas and beliefs about growing old and what it means to be young?
13. In a conversation with his friend Jill, Rodney explains that he will begin telling people at parties that he is writing a book explaining the reason for his decision for making such a lifestyle change. How important are, and how attached are we as a society to job, titles? How obsessed are we in general with working?
14. Rodney is often very obliging and ready to lend a helping hand when it comes to the relationships he developed with some of the elderly women. With Margaret he agrees to start taking piano lessons to keep her busy, and with Amy he tries to keep her actively performing her stand-up comedy routines. What does Rodney learn about these women and himself in the process?
15. Throughout the book, Rodney often seems intrigued by books that discuss interesting facts about heath and aging. "I've been reading more books about aging, and it is quite clear that the more elderly retirees socialize, the longer they live and the happier they are." What sort of influences would inspire this young writer to retirement at this time in his life?
16. Do you think older and younger people interact enough in our society? How has the elderly migration to Florida changed America's attitudes about the elderly?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind
Ivan Doig, 1979
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780156899826
Summary
Memoir. This work introduced a major modern author to the reading public. Ivan Doig grew up along the rugged rims of the Rocky Mountains in Montana with his father, Charlie, and his grandmother, Bessie Ringer. His life was formed among the sheepherders and characters of small-town saloons and valley ranches as he wandered beside his restless father. The prose of this memoir is as resonant of the landscape of the American West as it is of those moments in memory which determine our lives.
What Doig deciphers from his past is not only a sense of the land and how it shapes us, but also of our inextricable connection to those who shape our values in the search for intimacy, independence, love and family. This magnificently told story is at once especially American and quietly universal in its ability to awaken a longing for an explicable past. (From the author's website.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 27, 1939
• Where—White Sulphur Springs, Montana, USA
• Death—April 9, 2015
• Where—Seattle, Washington
• Education—B.A., M.A., Northwestern University; Ph.D., University of Washington
Ivan Doig was born in Montana to a family of home-steaders and ranch hands. After the death of his mother Berneta, on his sixth birthday, he was raised by his father Charles "Charlie" Doig and his grandmother Elizabeth "Bessie" Ringer. After several stints on ranches, they moved to Dupuyer, Pondera County, Montana in the north to herd sheep close to the Rocky Mountain front.
After his graduation from Valier high school, Doig attended Northwestern University, where he received a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in journalism. He later earned a Ph.D. in American history at the University of Washington, writing his dissertation about John J. McGilvra (1827-1903). He now lives with his wife Carol Doig, nee Muller, a university professor of English, in Seattle, Washington.
Before he became a novelist, Doig wrote for newspapers and magazines as a free-lancer and worked for the United States Forest Service. He has also published two memoirs—This House of Sky (1979) and Heart Earth (1993).
Much of his fiction (more than 10 novels) is set in the Montana country of his youth. His major theme is family life in the past, mixing personal memory and regional history. As the western landscape and people play an important role in his fiction, he has been hailed as the new dean of western literature, a worthy successor to Wallace Stegner. (From Wikipedia.)
Extras
His own words:
• Taking apart a career in such summary sentences always seems to me like dissecting a frog—some of the life inevitably goes out of it—and so I think the more pertinent Ivan Doig for you, Reader, is the red-headed only child, son of ranch hand Charlie Doig and ranch cook Berneta Ringer Doig (who died of her lifelong asthma on my sixth birthday), who in his junior year of high school (Valier, Montana; my class of 1957 had 21 members) made up his mind to be a writer of some kind.
• No one is likely to confuse my writing style with that of Charlotte Bronte, but when that impassioned parson’s daughter lifted her pen from Jane Eyre and bequeathed us the most intriguing of plot summaries—"Reader, I married him"—she also was subliminally saying what any novelist ... must croon to those of you with your eyes on our pages: "Reader, my story is flirting with you; please love it back."
• One last word about the setting of my work, the American West. I don’t think of myself as a "Western" writer. To me, language—the substance on the page, that poetry under the prose—is the ultimate "region," the true home, for a writer. Specific geographies, but galaxies of imaginative expression —we’ve seen them both exist in William Faulkner’s postage stamp-size Yoknapatawpha County, and in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s nowhere village of Macondo, dreaming in its hundred years of solitude. If I have any creed that I wish you as readers, necessary accomplices in this flirtatious ceremony of writing and reading, will take with you from my pages, it’d be this belief of mine that writers of caliber can ground their work in specific land and lingo and yet be writing of that larger country: life. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
(Preinternet books have few, if any, mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)
(Audio version.) This is the endearing story of a Montana man's reflections of growing up during a tumultuous, yet enlightening, time in history when life was slower, the landscape was environmentally protected, neighbors more supportive, and a boy's imagination could flourish. Doig describes in detail his mother and father's devotion for him and each other, and paints vivid portraits of a tightly knit family living in a rugged terrain and struggling for survival. After his mother's death, times got tougher, and Doig's portrayal of his dad's difficulties are touching. Poetic interludes are charming and contrast interestingly with Doig's portrayal of a wild and rugged Montana and its curious inhabitants. This unusual and beautifully expressed autobiography is a stunning work of art.
AudioFile
Discussion Questions
1. Doig has criticized much of the fiction that has arisen from the cowboy myth. In most of these formulaic stories, the hero is strong and predictably invincible against the enemy, be they forces of nature or forces of evil. How does Charlie Doig defy our stereotypical notions about the Western hero? How do his struggles raise him above the standard masculinity of the common Western man?
2. Describe how Doig's realistic sense of place broadens when he describes town life in Montana and the characters he and his father encountered at the Stockman Bar. Why are these trips to the Stockman so important to Charlie?
3. Charlie once tells Ivan, "Scotchmen and coyotes was the only ones that could live in the Basin, and pretty damn soon the coyotes starved out." Do these words explain why Charlie is able to survive his tenuous existence? How does he cope with the death of his first wife and the divorce of his second?
4. The discord between Charlie and Ruth brings for Ivan a mix of "apprehension and interestedness." Contrast Ruth with Berneta, and explore why Ivan might view his second mother in the way that he does.
5. Why does Doig call the reunion of Charlie and Bessie Ringer a "truce" and their relationship an "alliance"? Trace the development of Charlie and Bessie's relationship from the time of Charlie's divorce up until Charlie's death. How does it change? How does it stay the same?
6. Discuss the scene in which Ivan tells his father he is going to leave Montana for good. What makes it so poignant? Does Charlie understand his son's ambitions, or does he merely accept them? Does Ivan's decision to leave simply reinforce the idea of "absence across distance" for Charlie, an absence he has reluctantly grown accustomed to?
7. Bessie Ringer emerges from a generation of women still reeling under the influence of what feminist critics call "The Cult of True Womanhood," whose values (purity, piety, submissiveness, and domesticity) were often misunderstood and thus misapplied. Does Bessie, in some sense, break free from the rigid expectations for women of her time? Describe her personality and compare it to some of our classical notions of women on the plains.
8. In "North," Charlie, Bessie, and Ivan fight to save their sheep from an attack of ticks and a subsequent storm, which sends the herd bawling toward a steep precipice. Discuss the artistic elements of this scene.
9. Study Bessie's language patterns. Find instances of the humorous, often proverbial words that add spice to the memoir, making her come alive as a character. Is she, in some simple way, a mentor to Ivan with regards to the "mystery and meaning in the world around him?" Contrast Ivan's book learning with her more practical wisdom.
10. The vaulted symmetry in the mountain peaks, the "walls of high country," and the windswept floor where shadows accent deep valleys, all these provide the dimensions in the "house of sky" which would become part of Doig's heart and soul. How does the landscape shape Doig's recollective voice?
(Questions courtesy of the author's website.)
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Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man
Steve Harvey, 2009
HarperCollins
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062351562
Summary
Steve Harvey, the host of the nationally syndicated Steve Harvey Morning Show, can't count the number of impressive women he's met over the years, whether it's through the "Strawberry Letters" segment of his program or while on tour for his comedy shows.
These are women who can run a small business, keep a household with three kids in tiptop shape, and chair a church group all at the same time.
Yet when it comes to relationships, they can't figure out what makes men tick. Why? According to Steve it's because they're asking other women for advice when no one but another man can tell them how to find and keep a man. In Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, Steve lets women inside the mindset of a man and sheds lights on concepts and questions such as:
• The Ninety Day Rule: Ford requires it of its employees. Should you require it of your man?
• How to spot a mama's boy and what if anything you can do about it.
• When to introduce the kids. And what to read into the first interaction between your date
and your kids.
• The five questions every woman should ask a man to determine how serious he is.
• And more...
Sometimes funny, sometimes direct, but always truthful, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man is a book you must read if you want to understand how men think when it comes to relationships. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 17, 1956
• Where—Welch, West Virginia, USA
• Education—University of Virginia
• Awards—multiple NAACP Image Awards for The Steve
Harvey Show (1966-2002)
• Currently—lives in New York City
Steve Harvey began doing stand-up comedy in the mid-1980s. His success as a stand-up comedian led to a WB network show, The Steve Harvey Show, which ran from 1996 to 2002. It was a huge hit and won multiple NAACP Image Awards. In 1997, Harvey continued his work in stand-up comedy, touring as one of the "Kings of Comedy," along with Cedric the Entertainer, D. L. Hughley, and Bernie Mac. The comedy team would later be reunited in a film by Spike Lee called The Original Kings of Comedy. Steve Harvey is now widely known as the host of the nationally syndicated Steve Harvey Morning Show, which has more than seven million listeners. Harvey continues his unending pursuit and commitment to furthering opportunities in high schools throughout the country with generous contributions from the Steve Harvey Foundation. (From the publisher.)
More
Harvey was born in Welch, West Virginia, the son of Eloise and Jesse Harvey, a coal miner. He moved to Cleveland, Ohio and graduated from Glenville High School in 1974. He has held jobs as both an insurance salesman and a boxer.
He began doing stand-up comedy in the mid-1980s, and was a finalist in Second Annual Johnnie Walker National Comedy Search in 1989, eventually leading to a long stint as host of It's Showtime at the Apollo, succeeding Mark Curry in that role. His success as a stand-up comedian led to a starring role on the ABC show, Me and the Boys in 1994. He would later star on the WB network show, The Steve Harvey Show, which ran from 1996 to 2002. While wildly popular in the African-American community (the show won multiple NAACP Image Awards), the show never achieved critical acclaim outside of the African-American community, a matter about which Harvey has often complained.
In 1997, Harvey continued his work in stand-up comedy, touring as one of the Kings of Comedy, along with Cedric the Entertainer, D.L. Hughley and Bernie Mac. The comedy act would later be put together into a film by Spike Lee called The Original Kings of Comedy. DVD sales of The Original Kings of Comedy and Don't Trip, He Ain't Through With Me Yet increased Steve Harvey's popularity. Harvey released a hip hop and R&B audio CD on a record label he founded, and authored a book, Steve Harvey's Big Time. That title was also used as the name of Harvey's comedy and variety television show (later renamed Steve Harvey's Big Time Challenge) which aired on The WB network from 2003 until 2005. Harvey also launched a clothing line which features the line of dress wear. In 2005 Steve co-starred with David Spade in the movie Racing Stripes. He had appeared in the 2003 movie The Fighting Temptations.
Harvey is the host of his own morning radio show, The Steve Harvey Morning Show, which was originally syndicated under Radio One, Inc. broadcasting company, from September 2000 until May 2005. Despite efforts to syndicate the show nationally, ultimately, it aired only in L.A., on KKBT, and in Dallas on KBFB, with Harvey splitting his time between the Dallas and L.A. studios. As a result, Harvey and Radio One decided to part ways shortly before his contract expired. In September 2005, Harvey signed a joint syndication deal with Premiere Radio Networks and Inner City Broadcasting Corporation for a new incarnation of The Steve Harvey Morning Show. The show is based out of WBLS, in New York. In March 2009, it was announced that The Steve Harvey Morning Show would replace The Tom Joyner Morning Show in Chicago and will be simulcast on both WGCI and WVAC, which was Tom Joyner's flagship station. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
This book offers surprising insights into the male mentality and gives woman a few a few strategies for taming that unruly beast.
Philadelphia Inquirer
Filled with practical principles, rules and tips, and illustrated with humorous and warm-hearted anecdotes from Harvey’s life and friendships, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man gives readers the real deal about the differences between the sexes and how to bridge them for a mutually rewarding partnership.
New York Beacon
As a popular comedian, radio host and red-blooded male, harvey doesn't have the bona fides typical to most women's relationship self-help, but he still manages a thorough, witty guide to the modern man. Harvey undertakes the task because "women are clueless about men," because "men get away with a whole lot of stuff" and because he has "some valuable information to change all of that." Harvey makes a game effort, taking a bold but familiar men-are-dogs approach: if you're "cutting back" on sex, "he will have another woman lined up and waiting to give him what he needs and wants-the cookie." several chapters later, however, he introduces the "ninety-day rule," asserting that, actually, he won't always have another woman lined up-and the only way to make sure is a three month vetting period. Harvey also tackles mama's boys, "independent-and lonely-women," and the matter of children in the dating world ("if he's meeting the kids after you decide he's the one, it's too late"). Feminists and the easily offended probably won't take to harvey's blanket statements and blunt advice, but harvey's fans and those in need of tough (but ticklish) love advice should check it out (especially the hysterical last chapter's Q & A).
Publishers Weekly
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man:
1. Harvey compares Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man to a playbook from an rival sports team—reading it will give women an advantage. In other words, he paints men as the opposition team to women. Is that a good way to approach a love relationship? Does it set up the right, or wrong, model? Might there be a different model to follow, a partnership, perhaps? Or something else? Or is team rivalry, in which each side wants to "win," actually a fair description of what male-female relationships are about?
2. Is Harvey's advice valuable for single women looking for a relationship...or married women already in a relationship...or both?
3. This book offers a wealth of topics for discussion! Certainly one approach is to take each chapter sub-heading (e.g., "Our Love Isn't Like Your Love," "Sports Fish vs. Keepers," or "Mama's Boys") and discuss its validity and its application to personal, real-life experiences.
4. For men: how do you experience Harvey's message? Does it apply to your lives? Does it ring true? Do you find it illuminating, tiresome, untrue? If yours is an all-women club, invite men—boyfriends, husbands, fathers, brothers—to read the book and join you for the discussion. Or just ask a few men to read and comment on certain sections. Talk about their reactions during discussion.
5. Overall, what is Harvey's message: that men need to change? Or that men don't need to, or can't, change and that women must learn to understand the male perspective? What about women—is Harvey suggesting they need to change?
6. What did you learn from Harvey's book? Anything new? What did you find funny, thought-provoking, irritating?
7. Do you think all women should read this book? Will it help relationships? What about men—required reading or not?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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A Thousand Days in Venice
Marlena de Blasi, 2002
Random House
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345457646
Summary
He saw her across the Piazza San Marco and fell in love from afar. When he sees her again in a Venice café a year later, he knows it is fate. He knows little English; and she, a divorced American chef, speaks only food-based Italian.
Marlena thinks she is incapable of intimacy, that her heart has lost its capacity for romantic love. But within months of their first meeting, she has packed up her house in St. Louis to marry Fernando—“the stranger,” as she calls him—and live in that achingly lovely city in which they met.
Vibrant but vaguely baffled by this bold move, Marlena is overwhelmed by the sheer foreignness of her new home, its rituals and customs. But there are delicious moments when Venice opens up its arms to Marlena. She cooks an American feast of Mississippi caviar, cornbread, and fried onions for the locals...and takes the tango she learned in the Poughkeepsie middle school gym to a candlelit trattoría near the Rialto Bridge. All the while, she and Fernando, two disparate souls, build an extraordinary life of passion and possibility.
Featuring Marlena’s own incredible recipes, A Thousand Days in Venice is the enchanting true story of a woman who opens her heart—and falls in love with both a man and a city. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Schenectady, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., State University of New York, Albany
• Currently—lives in Orvieto, Umbria, Italy
Marlena de Blasi, who has worked as a chef and as a food and wine consultant, lives in Italy, where she plans and conducts gastronomic tours of its various regions. She is the author of four previous memoirs—That Summer in Sicily, A Thousand Days in Venice, A Thousand Days in Tuscany, and The Lady in the Palazzo—as well as three books on the foods of Italy. (From the publisher.)
Extras
From a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview:
• Everything is inspiration to write. A writer never stops writing, even if it's in his head or on paper napkins. I've been desperate enough to scratch half phrases on my bedsheets, not finding paper and fearing to lose a thought should I get up to look for such.
• I don't think writers can be raised up in a creative writing class. I think it's a bold, bad lie to convince someone he should—or can—be taught to write. I think writers' groups can sometimes be helpful, but I'm mostly wary even of them. Writing is a private, solo, isolating, and very lonely job. But if you're a writer, it's all you ever want to do.
• [My first job] was as a radio voice and TV voice and face. My best contracts were with Peugeot—(‘the best-kept automotive secret in America—Peugeot')—and Coty perfumes—(‘if you want to capture someone's attention, whisper') and other sort of soft-sell products.
• I taught cooking on a PBS channel for a few years. I was very passionate about this opportunity and wanted the audience to not just learn formula, but to be inspired by the beauty and sensuality of the raw food itself. My first show was live. And not understanding my gaffe until the producer explained it to me, I opened by holding up a single, great, and splendid leek. Camera in for a close-up. I smiled my TV model smile and said: ‘First, you take a leek.' I know someone has since written a book with that title, but I can assure you my traffic with those words came long before it.
• Since I live in a 14th-century palazzo on the via del Duomo in an Umbrian hill town, there's not such a great deal from which to unwind. Our life is simple and full of rituals such as sidling up to the bar in our favorite caffè—Montanucci—at least four times a day for cappuccini, aperitivi, pastry, chocolate, and sympathy; I write very early in the morning for a few hours, and then at about nine we go to the morning markets, shop for lunch, sit in the caffè and talk to our friends, come home to cook and put our bread in the oven. We sit down to lunch at one, get up from the table at about two-thirty or three, nap for an hour. I write until about seven-thirty, when we take the passeggiata—the evening stroll—the moment when the whole town is out and about. We pick up a few things for supper, take an aperitivo with our friends, head back home, where we'll dine at about nine-thirty, or go out to dine at one of the typical, tiny osterie for which Orvieto is famous.
• How wonderful you ask about dislikes, though I'm not certain this sits in that category or in the one labeled "things that hurt." But I find readers who judge style—my style—tiresome, presumptuous, often using the critical forum to air barely disguised ‘issues' of their own. And is there some glint of jealousy in their criticism? I'm not sure. That I see and feel life in a certain way and then write about it in my own voice, well, that belongs to me. Also I think it's that I find sarcasm, in all its tortured forms, to be simply naked insecurity. It's grand whenever a person states their sentiments. Better, if done so with a fine set of civil manners.
• When asked what book most influenced her life, her is her response:
I really don't think there was a single epiphanous book. I cherished and was touched by so many. But I was still in my teens when I first read Man of La Mancha, and I suppose because it resonated how I was already looking at life, it took on a certain sacredness which it's managed to sustain. The chivalric approach of it still appeals. ("Extras" from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
On a visit to Venice, de Blasi meets a local bank manager who falls in love with her at first sight. After "the stranger" (as she coyly calls him throughout the book) pursues her back to her home in St. Louis, Mo., she agrees to return to Italy and marry him, leaving behind her grown children and her job as chef and partner in a cafe. Although the banker, Fernando, lives in a bunkerlike postwar condominium on the Lido rather than the Venetian palazzo of her dreams, and some of his European ideas about women clash with her American temperament, the relationship works. She survives his criticism of her housekeeping and his displeasure at her insistence on remaining a serious cook (in modern Italy "No one bakes bread or dolci or makes pasta at home," he tells her), and they marry. Then one day Fernando surprises her by announcing that he is quitting his job at the bank where he has worked for 26 years. They leave Venice, he espouses her interest in food and they now direct gastronomic tours of Tuscany and Umbria. De Blasi's breathless descriptions of her improbable love affair can be cloying, but she makes up for these excesses with her enchanting accounts of Venice, especially of the markets at the Rialto. She conjures up vivid images of produce "so sumptuously laid as to be awaiting Caravaggio" and picturesque scenes of the vendors, such as the egg lady who keeps her hens under her table, collects the eggs as soon as they are laid and wraps each one in newspaper, "twisting both ends so that the confection looks like a rustic prize for a child's party." In a final section entitled "Food for a Stranger," de Blasi (Regional Foods of Northern Italy) includes recipes for a few of the dishes with which she charmed the stranger.
Publishers Weekly
Venice is almost synonymous with romance, and in this charming account de Blasi spares no detail in telling us how she fell under its spell. A journalist, restaurant critic, and food consultant, de Blasi left her home, her grown children, and her job as a chef in St. Louis to marry Fernando, a Venetian she barely knew. In defiance of the cynics who think true love in middle age is crazy, her marriage flourished, as these two strangers made a life together. Food comforted the newlyweds when their conflicting cultures almost divided them, and in the end marital harmony reigns. Is this book a romance, a food guide, or an exhortation for us to come to Venice and experience the magic? Ultimately, it is all three, and there is even an appendix that includes recipes for dishes described in the text. Recommended for larger travel, biography, or cooking collections. —Olga B. Wise, Compaq Computer Corp., Austin, TX
Library Journal
A luxurious story of sudden love, done properly, from cook/journalist de Blasi (Regional Foods of Northern Italy). Middle-aged and divorced, with two grown children, living in St. Louis (Missouri, that is), de Blasi goes to Venice and meets the gaze of a man while having a drink in a restaurant with friends. He asks her for a rendezvous, and she agrees, unexpectedly, touched by the same whatever that has moved him. The rest is history, and a great story. The man, Fernando-no smooth-talker, a bit of a frump, awkward, yet a romantic-comes for a weeklong visit to St. Louis, and by the time he leaves, de Blasi has promised to move to Venice to be with him. She has few second thoughts, and her friends urge her on: "If there is even the possibility that this is real love," one of them asks her, "could you dare to imagine turning away from it?" She doesn't, and what follows are the next 1,000 days, her game immersion in Italian culture to her wedding to their move south to Tuscany. De Blasi relates it all in a voice at once worldly and sensuous, unsentimental and aware of what it means to have such good fortune. Not all is as rosy as the Venetian morning light, though; she suffers a loss of her natural ebullience, "the quick strangling of spontaneity for the sake of a necessary deception that Italians call 'elegance'," though she doesn't allow it to dampen her vitality, nor does she let Fernando—who eats like a bird and whose kitchen is "a cell with a Playskool stove"—diminish her love of food. Rather, she binds her love of Fernando to her love of food, like a bouquet garni, in one long delicious engagement running throughout this ode, from cappuccino and apricot pastry to pumpkin gnocchi in cream and sage. Love stories are easy targets, but no one will scoff at the genuine and cheering affection depicted so generously here.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. “Even as I am drawn to Venice, so I am suspicious of her.” Why did this well-traveled author deliberately shun Venice for so long? Why was she so suspicious?
2. The author’s family and friends respond in many different ways to her decision to move to Venice and marry Fernando. Without the benefit of hindsight, what do you think your initial response would be to a friend or a relative planning such a drastic life change?
3. When she and Fernando first kiss, de Blasi recognizes that they “are not too old” for love. Yet her love affair inspires awkwardness, suspicion, and even embarrassment in many of those around her. Discuss the internal and external barriers to love found later in life.
4. In the midst of a quarrel with Fernando, the author wonders “why there always hovers, just an inch or two above love, some small itch for revenge.” Discuss this statement. What other emotions and reactions hover just above love?
5. Throughout the novel, de Blasi refers to her partner and then husband as “the stranger.” How well do you know those you love? Do you ever consider them strangers?
6. The author and her husband both struggle to keep their personal demons in check to make their relationship work. Do you agree with de Blasi that this can be easier to do later in life? Why or why not?
7. Why does de Blasi move to Italy as opposed to Fernando moving to the United States?
8. The author is forced to jettison most of her material possessions upon her move to Italy, which she finds liberating. Could you or would you do the same? If you could keep only what could be shipped overseas at a reasonable cost, what would you choose?
9. The author’s friend Misha warns her that she will “neither understand nor be understood” in Italy. How does she navigate the cultural barriers that threaten to isolate and overwhelm her? What role does her love of food play?
10. In the end, do you think de Blasi has found a satisfactory means of communication in her new culture?
11. Discuss what places in the world inspire you the way Venice inspires de Blasi. Is there a culture different from your own you can imagine immersing yourself in? If you have done so, how does your experience compare with de Blasi’s?
12. The author chooses to embrace the complications involving her wedding. Discuss the expectations surrounding such special events and the potential for disaster.
13. On the impact of her life-changing decision on her adult children, de Blasi muses “that their childhood was ending and…in a strange way, my childhood was beginning.” Discuss the meaning of this statement.
14. Like Fernando, have you ever felt imprisoned by the expectations of others? Have you lost track of dreams you once had?
15. De Blasi makes her husband feel connected to the world. Who or what makes you feel connected to the world?
16. Cooking for a crowd, real or imagined, helps the author stave off the loneliness that plagues and frightens her. What staves off loneliness for you?
17. The author argues, “Too often it is we who won’t let life be simple.” Do you agree or disagree?
18. Do you think “a little suffering sweetens things”?
19. How do you think this narrative would unfold if told in Fernando’s voice? How might it differ and how might it remain the same?
20. How do you think Fernando would describe his wife in his own words?
21. In the final line of her acknowledgments, de Blasi hints that another memoir might be forthcoming. Would your group be interested in reading another installment of this memoir? Do you want to learn about her life in the Tuscan village of San Casciano dei Bagni?
22. Did you find this memoir to be a satisfying read? What are the benefits and drawbacks of this literary genre?
23. How would you describe this book to prospective readers?
24. If you were to write your own memoirs, what story would you tell?
25. Is your group satisfied with this selection? Why or why not? What is your next selection?
26. Have you or will you try any of the recipes found at the end of this novel?
(Questions issued by publishser.)
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Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
Amy Chua
Penguin Group USA
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594202841
Summary
An awe-inspiring, often hilarious, and unerringly honest story of one mother's exercise in extreme parenting, revealing the rewards-and the costs-of raising her children the Chinese way.
All decent parents want to do what's best for their children. What Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother reveals is that the Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that. Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions and providing a nurturing environment. The Chinese believe that the best way to protect your children is by preparing them for the future and arming them with skills, strong work habits, and inner confidence. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother chronicles Chua's iron-willed decision to raise her daughters, Sophia and Lulu, her way—the Chinese way—and the remarkable results her choice inspires.
Here are some things Amy Chua would never allow her daughters to do:
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin
The truth is Lulu and Sophia would never have had time for a playdate. They were too busy practicing their instruments (two to three hours a day and double sessions on the weekend) and perfecting their Mandarin.
Of course no one is perfect, including Chua herself. Witness this scene—"According to Sophia, here are three things I actually said to her at the piano as I supervised her practicing:
- Oh my God, you're just getting worse and worse.
- I'm going to count to three, then I want musicality.
- If the next time's not PERFECT, I'm going to take all your stuffed animals and burn them!"
But Chua demands as much of herself as she does of her daughters. And in her sacrifices-the exacting attention spent studying her daughters' performances, the office hours lost shuttling the girls to lessons-the depth of her love for her children becomes clear.
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is an eye-opening exploration of the differences in Eastern and Western parenting- and the lessons parents and children everywhere teach one another. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1962
• Where—Champaign, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., J.D., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in New Haven, Connecticut
Amy L. Chua is the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She joined the Yale faculty in 2001 after teaching at Duke Law School. Prior to starting her teaching career, she was a corporate law associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. She specializes in the study of international business transactions, law and development, ethnic conflict, and globalization and the law. She is widely known for her parenting memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011), and The Triple Package (2014), co-authored with her husband Jed Rubenfeld.
Background
Chua was born in Champaign, Illinois. Her parents were ethnic Chinese from the Philippines who emigrated to the United States. Amy's father, Leon O. Chua, is an Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences professor at the University of California, Berkeley and is known as the father of nonlinear circuit theory, cellular neural networks, and discovered the memristor. She was raised as a Roman Catholic and lived in West Lafayette, Indiana.
When she was eight years old, her family moved to Berkeley, California. Chua went to El Cerrito High School and graduated magna cum laude with an A.B. in Economics from Harvard College in 1984. She obtained her J.D. cum laude in 1987 from Harvard Law School, where she was an Executive Editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Books
Chua has written four books: two studies of international affairs, a memoir and her latest on Ethnic-American culture.
• World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (2003), explores the ethnic conflict caused in many societies by disproportionate economic and political influence of "market dominant minorities" and the resulting resentment in the less affluent majority. The book—a New York Times Bestseller, was selected by The Economist as one of the Best Books of 2003 and was named in The Guardian as one of the "Top Political Reads of 2003"—examines how globalization and democratization since 1989 have affected the relationship between market dominant minorities and the wider population.
• Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance—and Why They Fall (2007), examines seven major empires and posits that their success depended on their tolerance of minorities.
• Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011), is a memoir that ignited a global parenting debate with its story of one mother’s journey in strict parenting techniques.
• The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America (2014) outlines three personal traits that make for individual success. It is co-authored with Jed Rubenfeld, her husband.
Personal
Chua lives in New Haven, Connecticut and is married to Yale Law School professor Jed Rubenfeld. She has two daughters, Sophia and Louisa ("Lulu"). She is the eldest of four sisters: Michelle, Katrin, and Cynthia. Katrin is a physician and a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. Cynthia, who has Down Syndrome, holds two International Special Olympics gold medals in swimming. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/18/2014.)
Book Reviews
So many parenting memoirs capture the various ways the authors' children have taken them to hell and back. Refreshingly, and perhaps uniquely, Chua instead catalogs the various ways she tortured her two young daughters, all in the name of Chinese tradition and the goal of reaching Carnegie Hall…Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is entertaining, bracingly honest and, yes, thought-provoking.
Susan Dominus - New York Times Book Review
Readers will alternately gasp at and empathize with Chua's struggles and aspirations, all the while enjoying her writing, which, like her kid-rearing philosophy, is brisk, lively and no-holds-barred. This memoir raises intriguing, sometimes uncomfortable questions about love, pride, ambition, achievement and self-worth that will resonate among success-obsessed parents.
Elizabeth Chang - Washington Post
This is one outrageous book, partly thanks to Amy Chua's writing style - Chua is pugnacious and blunt, with an unerring nose for the absurd ...The cultural divide Chua so brilliantly captures is one we stand to witness more and more in our globalized age, after all; and what with Asia and Asian achievement looming ever larger in the American imagination, the issues inherent in Battle Hymn are as important as they are entertaining... I was riveted by this book.
Gish Jen - Boston Globe
Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother did more than speak to me. It screamed, shouted and lectured me. It made me simultaneously laugh with empathy and cringe with embarrassment and exasperation... Charming... Self-effacing... Guffaw-inducing.
Terry Hong - San Francisco Chronicle
Chua (Day of Empire) imparts the secret behind the stereotypical Asian child's phenomenal success: the Chinese mother. Chua promotes what has traditionally worked very well in raising children: strict, Old World, uncompromising values--and the parents don't have to be Chinese. What they are, however, are different from what she sees as indulgent and permissive Western parents: stressing academic performance above all, never accepting a mediocre grade, insisting on drilling and practice, and instilling respect for authority. Chua and her Jewish husband (both are professors at Yale Law) raised two girls, and her account of their formative years achieving amazing success in school and music performance proves both a model and a cautionary tale. Sophia, the eldest, was dutiful and diligent, leapfrogging over her peers in academics and as a Suzuki piano student; Lulu was also gifted, but defiant, who excelled at the violin but eventually balked at her mother's pushing. Chua's efforts "not to raise a soft, entitled child" will strike American readers as a little scary—removing her children from school for extra practice, public shaming and insults, equating Western parenting with failure—but the results, she claims somewhat glibly in this frank, unapologetic report card, "were hard to quarrel with.
Publishers Weekly
Most critics agreed that Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is an entertaining read—lively and humorous, written with the intent to shock. More controversial is Chua’s stereotyping of Chinese and Western cultures, not to mention her authoritarian parenting methods..
Bookmarks Magazine
She insists that Western children are no happier than Chinese ones, and that her daughters are the envy of neighbors and friends, because of their poise and musical, athletic, and academic accomplishments. Ironically, this may be read as a cautionary tale that asks just what price should be paid for achievement. —Colleen Mondor
Booklist
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother:
1. What is your overall reaction to Battle Hymn of the Mother Tiger? Are you appalled or impressed, in agreement, disagreement...or something else?
2. What kind of mother is Amy Chua? Do you wish you'd had a mother like Chua? Or that you were a mother like Chua?
3. Is this a parenting manual? Are Western parents too soft on, or too permissive toward, their children? Does Amy Chua offer an alternative parenting model?
4. What is the most extreme example of Amy Chua's mothering? Which incidents stuck with you more than others—the piano practice threats? The birthday card rejection?
5. Success for Chua is important: how does she define success...and how do you define it? How important is success to you?
6. Consider whether Chua's children are such extraordinarily high achievers (musically and academically) because of their strict upbringing...or because of their innate abilities, i.e., genetics? (See her father's background in the Author Bio above.)
7. According to Chua, her parenting method is typical of Chinese families. Is their method—with its strict demands for high achievement—superior to that of Western parents? How would you describe the differences between parenting in the two cultures?
8. Chua wishes to reverse what she sees as "a remarkably common pattern" of decline in the Chinese immigrant family. According to Chua, first generation immigrants exercise strict discipline. Their children, the second generation, will "typically be high-achieving" but less strict with their children. And the third generation, "will feel that they have individual rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution"—an attitude that ultimately leads to to disobedience and generational decline. Is the decline Chua describes real? Have other immigrant populations experienced the same pattern?
9. Do you agree or disagree with Chua's criticisms of various aspects of Western culture—Facebook and junk food being two examples?
10. What does Chua think of the Western emphasis on self-esteem? Do you agree...or disagree with her assessment?
11. Chua dismisses the happy endings of Disney family movies by saying that that's "just Disney's way of appealing to all the people who never win prizes." What do you think—are the movies' soft-focus on parenting values pandering to low-achievers, to those who will never rise above average?
12. Part of Chua's rationale is that she understands what all Chinese parents understand: "that nothing is fun until you're good at it." Do you agree? Is playing the piano well as an adult, for instance, worth those toothmarks bitten into the piano as a child?
13. Chua says of herself, "the truth is I'm good at enjoying life." What do you make of her admission? Has she risked teaching her daughters the same attitude toward life?
14. What role does Chua's husband, Jed, play in all this? What should his role have been? What do you make of the fact that Chua is not unlike his own mother?
15. How did her sister's illness change Chua's views on life?
16. When Lulu had her outburst in Russia, did you root for her, or shrink back in horror?
17. How, eventually, is Chua "humbled" by her daughters—in what way do they prove wiser than their mother? Is, in fact, Chua truly humbled by Lulu? Does she have a genuine awakening?
18. What area some of the books humorous moments. Many reviewers talked about laughing out loud. What sections do you find especially funny, even hilarious?
19. Is success worth the time and effort it takes to maintain oversight and discipline...and, most especiallly, is it worth a child's unhappiness? Is that unhappiness only momentary in the larger scheme of life? In the end, is the payoff—a lifetime of accomplishment—worth the cost?
20. What do you predict for Chua's daughters? Do you think they will raise their children with the same strict standards their mother applied to them?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)